DATA WAREHOUSING FUNDAMENTALS: A Comprehensive Guide for IT Professionals

20.4. MANAGING THE DATA WAREHOUSE

After the deployment of the initial version of the data warehouse, the management function switches gear. Until now, the emphasis remained on following through the steps of the data warehouse development life cycle. Design, construction, testing, user acceptance, and deployment were the watchwords. Now, at this point, data warehouse management is concerned with two principal functions. The first is maintenance management. The data warehouse administrative team must keep all the functions going in the best possible manner. The second is change management. As new versions of the warehouse are deployed, as new releases of the tools become available, as improvements and automation take place in the ETL functions, the administrative team's focus includes enhancements and revisions.

In this section, let us consider a few important aspects of data warehouse management. We will point out the essential factors. Postdeployment administration covers the following areas:

• Performance monitoring and fine-tuning

• Data growth management

• Storage management

• Network management

• ETL management

• Management of future data mart releases

• Enhancements to information delivery

• Security administration

• Backup and recovery management

• Web technology administration

• Platform upgrades

• Ongoing training

• User support

20.4.1. Platform Upgrades

Your data warehouse deployment platform includes the infrastructure, the data transport component, end-user information delivery, data storage, metadata, ...